A solar storm forecast for Thursday is expected to give skygazers in 17 American states a chance to glimpse the Northern Lights, the colorful sky show that happens when solar wind hits the atmosphere.
They’re guessing, and no doubt fishing for clicks.
X-rays from flares travel at the speed of light and hit us in about 8 minutes. Solar energetic particles (related to flares) take minutes to hours. A coronal mass ejection usually takes about 3 days. At the moment we have no way of predicting them before they happen, so X-ray flares have no early warning because nothing is faster than the speed of light. We can see a CME erupt and know if it’s heading our way.
There are a couple of good sized sunspots at the moment that are facing towards us so the chances of something happening are decent, but we don’t know if and when and how much.
I see a pretty large loop just swinging around from the far side, maybe they’re expecting that to throw something our way. Otherwise yeah, I don’t know where they’re getting this prediction from.
They’re guessing, and no doubt fishing for clicks.
X-rays from flares travel at the speed of light and hit us in about 8 minutes. Solar energetic particles (related to flares) take minutes to hours. A coronal mass ejection usually takes about 3 days. At the moment we have no way of predicting them before they happen, so X-ray flares have no early warning because nothing is faster than the speed of light. We can see a CME erupt and know if it’s heading our way.
There are a couple of good sized sunspots at the moment that are facing towards us so the chances of something happening are decent, but we don’t know if and when and how much.
I see a pretty large loop just swinging around from the far side, maybe they’re expecting that to throw something our way. Otherwise yeah, I don’t know where they’re getting this prediction from.